In audio recording for music or film it is often desired to pass an audio signal through an effect unit to alter the sound in a desirable way, for example, in film work a recording may be made to sound as if it were coming through a telephone, from a distance or in a room with characteristic sound quality even though the original sound was recorded in a dead acoustic of a studio. In music work more severe distortions may be required, for example passing the signal through a guitar amplifier and speaker which is allowed to distort and back into a microphone, or through an analogue recording cycle onto and back from magnetic tape which is often considered to add a desirable sound quality.
Many devices exist to process signals in these ways, some specific to individual effects and some programmable to generate a range of effects on demand. The purpose of this invention is to allow the simulation of a large variety of such effects and further to allow existing effects to be analyzed and the characteristics of the effect to be stored and simulated on demand.